2016

I've kept this blog, on and off, since 2006. In 2015 I used it to chart daily encounters, images, thoughts and feelings about volcanic basalt/bluestone in Melbourne and Victoria, especially in the first part of the year. I plan to write a book provisionally titled Bluestone: An Emotional History, about human uses of and feelings for bluestone. But I am also working on quite a few other projects and a big grant application, especially now I am on research leave. I'm working mostly from home, then, for six months, and will need online sociability for company!

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Can't help but be moved by the death of Jane McGrath this week, after complications from surgery for secondary cancers. If it's easy, sometimes, to mock the WAGs of international football and cricketing stars, here was a woman who faced breast cancer and its ghastly aftermath with courage and grace.

When I was given my passport to the country of illness, it was inevitable to look around me and acknowledge my travelling companions. Over the months of waiting in doctor's rooms, I read more than enough trashy mags, but always poured over stories about Kylie, Belinda, Jane. Of course all these accounts are heavily mediated, but the McGrath story always moved me, because the two of them just seemed so matter-of-fact about it all. And it was fascinating to get a glimpse of the non-cricketing side of Glenn McGrath. Sports gossip says he has a tremendous temper, but there was no sign of it in their dignified accounts of their struggle. Jane McGrath was only 42 when she died, but she and her husband established a foundation which raises money, very practically, for specialist breast care nurses, especially in regional areas.

I shuddered when I first heard the news this afternoon, and when we were watching the tv news tonight, I had to hold in a little sob. She leaves behind a loving husband and two young children. Requiescat in pace.

On another level, my instant reaction when Glenn asked for a bit of privacy for his family was a sense of grumpiness that, as a SPORTS hero, he'll bloody well get the privacy. If he were any other kind of celebrity, that request would be completely ignored. Hmmm.